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Sharia is a horrible, horrible law.
Someone I know who recently retired from the Pentagon says that Europe will be Muslim in a generation. Does that seem right to you?

Bernard Lewis was interviewed a few years back and he said that it would take less than a century. There are certainly a lot of variables, but the critical things to look at are emigration rates, immigration rates and birth rates. The birth rates are the first critical issue. Given two populations, one with a birthrate of 1.6 children per woman and one with a birthrate of 4.6 per woman (the Non-Moslem and Moslem birthrates for Europe), 200 men and women (100 couples) in each group will produce 160 and 460 children, which translates to 80 couples and 230 couples, from the original 100. The next generation will be 64 couples and 529 couples. The third generation will produce 51 and 1216 couples. So, in three generations, the non-Moslem population halves, and the Moslem population increases twelvefold. Now, throw in the tendency of Europeans to delay family formation (educated women tend to marry and have children later in life, which is also one of the factors in the lower overall birthrate), while Moslem couples form up much younger, so it's likely that there would be four Moslem generations to three European ones, resulting in another doubling of the number of Moslem births. Then throw in emigration of Non-Moslems from Europe and immigration of Moslems to Europe and the numbers skew even faster. The only question becomes the original percentages of the population each group comprises and you can chart exactly when the Islamic population will overtake the non-Islamic. Of course, there is another issue, which is that Moslems in Europe tend to be highly concentrated in urban areas, so even if they are not a majority in Britain, the could very well become a majority in some key cities, which could make them an effective political majority.

Originally Posted by OwlMBA

If you want to know where the US will be in ten years, just look at Europe.
Wont be long until we have cities and states doing the same thing here. Michigan will be the first.

Not too likely. First, we have a constitutional aversion to religious law, and while the ACLU would turn a blind eye to Sharia, a lot of other American institutions would oppose it with vigor. Second, our welfare and immigration systems are nowhere near as conducive to mass immigration from Moslem countries as Europe's are (we are far more likely to be overwhelmed by Latino immigration than Moslem). Third, our response to violent extremism tends to be a bit more robust than the Europeans'. 9/11 galvanized most of us to take on the terrorists, while the Madrid bombings cowed the Spanish. Finally, as blinkered and benighted as most liberals are, a significant Moslem enclave in the US that became as violent, misogynistic and dangerous as the Paris suburbs would arouse massive resistance to further immigration, and unlike Europe, our elites don't have enough control of the political processes to prevent that resistance from being felt at the polls. Of course, the immigration and welfare rules could change, depending on who is elected, but if that were the case, the backlash would be even more extreme when it finally came.

In a free society, people can enter into private contractual agreements involving religion (that means any religion) if they want to, they aren't being forced and Judaism has had a similar set up in Britain for a while.

In a free society, people can enter into private contractual agreements involving religion (that means any religion) if they want to, they aren't being forced and Judaism has had a similar set up in Britain for a while.

What you are failing to take into account is that the Sharia courts have unique aspects which will expand their jurisdiction to anyone who they can plausibly call a Moslem and who does not want to risk his or her life over a tort or contract issue, and which will gradually force non-Moslems who have dealings with Moslems to appeal to the same courts. In addition, the specifics of Sharia law, the differences in the weight of testimony (or even its admissability) based on religion and gender, the disparate settlements between men and women in financial, marital and custody issues and even the basic evidentiary rules and presumptions are in direct conflict with English Common Law, while the Talmudic Law used in the Jewish courts are, by their very nature, designed to permit flexibility in order to ensure compliance with the broader national laws. A Sharia legal code in which the value of evidence, proportion of settlements and the presumptions of guilt are weighed according to the gender and religion of the litigants is incompatible with western legal frameworks that emphasize the equality of all litigants before the bar. Also, keep in mind that of the four major schools of Sharia, it is the Salafist school, derived from the Saudi Wahabbi Sunni sect, which is being applied, and this is the most virulently anti-modern of all of the Islamic schools of judicial thought.

In a free society, people can enter into private contractual agreements involving religion (that means any religion) if they want to, they aren't being forced and Judaism has had a similar set up in Britain for a while.

If two parties want to agree to binding arbitration through a non-civil court entity -that's fine. The trouble is - That's not the limit of Sharia. Furthermore - Judiams - as I have said before is a hereditary religion - meaning the accept very few converts. Islam is an historically violent expansionist religion with a long history of subjugation and a abuse of non-muslims. It's idiocy to give them even a foothold.